Many religions understand exorcism to be the driving out of evil spirits. In Russia, the leadership of the Orthodox Church now wants to specify the rules for this rite. Accordingly, drug addicts and the mentally ill are excluded from exorcism.
To prevent the abuse of exorcism, the Russian Orthodox Church clarifies the rules for what it understands as casting out evil spirits. The church leadership, the Patriarchate, published a draft of this document in Moscow. Most importantly, only a bishop or a specifically authorized minister could practice exorcism; there should be no reward for performing the established rite.
The paper also contains negative examples of how exorcism is apparently practiced at the level of the popular church in Russia. So it is an abuse when exorcism is carried out without authorization or for profit. It is not acceptable to carry out mass exorcisms in front of an audience, to photograph or film them and even to publish the material.
The church leadership makes it clear that the mentally ill, alcohol or drug addicts are not possessed and should not be treated exorcistically. “It is wrong to say that a possessed person is more sinful than others,” it says. Theologically, possession was interpreted as a “special condition” that God allows in order to improve a person. Whether an exorcism works or not is God’s will – the result must be accepted “with the necessary humility and gratitude to God”.
Many religions understand exorcism (Greek: exorkismós = summoning out) to mean the ritual expulsion of evil forces or spirits from people, animals or objects. In the Catholic Church, the exorcism of allegedly possessed people was widespread in the Middle Ages. Today the rite is subject to strict conditions.
